CHAP, vii SYLVA 327 



17. The moles do much hurt, by making hollow 

 passages, which grow musty, but they may be taken 

 in traps, and kill'd, as every woodman knows : It is 

 certain that they are driven from their haunts by 

 garlick for a time, and other heady smells, buried in 

 their passages. 



1 8. Mice, rats, with traps, or by sinking some 

 vessel amost level with the surface of the ground, the 

 vessel half full of water, upon which let there be 

 strew'd some hulls, or chaff of oats ; also with bane, 

 powder of orpiment in milk, and aconites mix'd with 

 butter : Gofiras or green-glass broken with honey : 

 Morsels of sponge chopp'd small and fry'd in lard, &c. 

 are very fit baits to destroy these nimble creatures, 

 which else soon will ruin a semination of nuts, acorns 

 and other kernels in a night or two, and rob the 

 largest beds of a nursery, carrying them away by 

 thousands to their cavernous magazines, to serve them 

 all the Winter : I have been told, that hop-branches 

 stuck about trees, preserve them from these theivish 

 creatures. 



19. Destroy pismires with scalding water, and 

 disturbing their hills, or rubbing the stem with cow- 

 dung, or a decoction of tithymale, washing the infested 

 parts ; and this will insinuate, and chase them quite 

 out of the chinks and crevices, without prejudice to 

 the tree, and is a good prevention of other infirmities ; 

 also by laying soot, sea-coal, or saw-dust, or refuse 

 tobacco where they haunt, often renew'd, especially 

 after rain ; for becoming moist, the dust and powder 

 harden, and then they march over it. 



20. Caterpillars, by cutting off their webs from the 

 twigs before the end of February, and burning them ; 

 the sooner the better : If they be already hatched, 



